How to be fully alive

It is refreshing to know that the leader of the Catholic Church has his ears open to the voices and changing ideas of young people. Christus Vivit – “Christ is alive” – is a 299-paragraph document addressed “to young people and to the entire people of God” and is written with great affection.

Why does that matter? Because it can be easy to lose sight of anything, let alone faith, if you do not feel considered. It is with this in mind that Pope Francis wrote Christus Vivit – to inspire specifically the faith of young people, the sort of faith he finds in the models of youthful saints such as Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc and Thérèse of Lisieux, as well as in biblical figures such as Jesus in his youth.

The Pope says the Church should embody “the beauty of youth” and deliberates on how to renew youth ministry and attract younger people to the Church in a world that is increasingly closing in on itself. He says he allowed himself to be “inspired by the wealth of reflections and conversations” that took place in October 2018 at the Synod on Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment, where bishops from across the world gathered.

Christus Vivit does not dismiss the questionable history of the Church. The document acknowledges its promotion of male domination and clericalist protection for those who have committed “the abuse of power, the abuse of conscience, sexual and financial abuse”. In fact, the Pope encourages young people to keep priests true to their vows and vocations: “[If] you see a priest at risk, because he has lost the joy of his ministry, or seeks affective compensation, or is taking the wrong path, remind him of his commitment to God and his people, remind him of the Gospel and urge him to hold to his course. In this way, you will contribute greatly to something fundamental: preventing these atrocities from being repeated.” The Church has to repair its reputation with young people, he writes, otherwise it will have to accept the risk of becoming a “museum”.

My own curiosity for faith came about later in my teenage years, and I understand the difficulty of enlightening young people through faith. Having been an impartial spectator for so long, I can see that one of the main problems for the Church is its lack of listening to younger people – particularly those who are not part of the Church community. This is enlightenment: the task of encouraging young people to follow Jesus’ teachings and to live through faith is a challenge on both sides, especially at a time of growing discontentment with the world. There is the rising cost of living, finding yourself unable to buy a round for your friends, the competitive job market, isolation, addiction. For young people, finding a path to holiness in a hostile world is increasingly difficult. Having faith in the teachings of Christ and encouraging young people to live life fully in the spirit of Christ requires perspective.

That is what Pope Francis seeks to convey in Christus Vivit. He says that we are called by God to be fully alive, not restricted, and his writing reflects on the richness and power that fully alive young people bring to the Church. It is the twenty-first-century obstacles to the life of faith for young people – isolation, over-consumption of media, addiction to drugs and pornography – that “rob you of hope and joy”.

“... being young is not only about pursuing fleeting pleasures and superficial achievements. If the years of your youth are to serve their purpose in life, they must be a time of generous commitment, whole-hearted dedication, and sacrifices that are difficult but ultimately fruitful.” Christ wants us to be alive in the fullest sense.

The crucial things are vocation and good discernment – “a path of freedom that brings to full fruit what is unique in each person, something so personal that only God knows it”. And whatever our own disheartening experiences of divorce and separation, it is worth “your every effort to invest in the family” so as not to be “robbed of a great love”.

It’s reciprocal: the Church offers so much to and needs so much from the young. “May the Holy Spirit urge you on as you run this race. The Church needs your momentum, your intuitions, your faith. We need them!”